Beer Fights?
Ann Arbor realtor Edward Surovell (not inaptly spelled “Sourvell” here) tells the Los Angeles Times what he really thinks of a quarter of the population of the town where he does business. “Students are horrible, disgusting. Their rooms smell. They live together like rabbits in a warren. They eat and sleep together. They have beer fights, and they don’t make their beds.”
I was just talking with a house painter who was working on the apartment next to mine, which was formerly rented by a student. He showed me in to let me know what he was facing. There, this brilliant undergrad had painted his entire apartment fire engine red. Now, apart from these not being the colors of Michigan, but of Wisconsin, who in their right mind can live in an apartment THAT RED? Maybe he was thinking that if he painted it like a bordello, hookers would come, but I never heard any sex sounds coming from those walls, and thank god. Oh, and he did this without asking the landlord’s permission. I wouldn’t want to have undergrads living in MY building. But I think the main problem is that the landlords provide such shitty apartments that it just creates the problem - it is not that the students are rotten apples that spoil the bunch, but that the barrel itself is rotten. Just take a stroll through the student ghetto to see what good the landlords of ann arbor are doing with their rent money - certainly it isn’t the upkeep of their buildings.
posted by DrMandrake on August 21st, 2005 at 3:52 pmFuckers. You give us a shitty house to live in, with bad wiring that burns the house down and porches mailmen don’t dare to walk upon, and repeatedly ignore repair requests, and that’s gonna make the students want to keep the property pretty.
Shit, I wonder if the average rate of $500 a month for a place has anything to do with cramming as many people as possible into a place. I really fucking wonder.
posted by Anonymous on August 21st, 2005 at 4:31 pmStudents not only live in disgusting houses, we also take cold showers. We have no hot water in our house right now, and it’s been going out for days at a time for the last month or so. Landlord hasn’t done anything.
Why do these students insist on living like this?
posted by ann arbor is overrated on August 21st, 2005 at 7:09 pmIt certainly is vile, but I admit that I have been eating with other people for several years. Does that make me as horrible and disgusting as a common student, even if I DO make my bed?
posted by FAA on August 21st, 2005 at 7:14 pmIf you don’t like it, east lansing is north about 60 miles.
Me personally i would knock down all of the crap houses and build student apartments like those in EL. See everyone is happy now.
posted by Aaron on August 21st, 2005 at 10:59 pmOh, Mr. Surovell, I’m so sorry I don’t make my bed. When you were a biker rebel back in the day (or perhaps that is just an oft-cited rumor?) did you always make your bed? And I agree with FAA, I have been eating with other people for years! Even in public. Even with my family.
I know Surovell donates a lot of dough to UMS, but he sounds like a real jackass, doesn’t he?
DrMandrake, I once painted my college apartment walls red, purple, green, and blue, with an orange kitchen and a black ceiling. I can’t tell you how many coats of primer I had to put on the ceiling before it was white again. I can tell you that I did a better job of masking the molding and electric sockets than the painters hired by the management companies, and that the tenants that followed me never had the faintest idea of what the place looked like before. I’m glad I did it (although the black ceiling was a bad idea) but I don’t think I’d do it again.
posted by Chris on August 22nd, 2005 at 10:12 amSurovell is a pig … and that comment is an insult to swine. I have had to deal with his company before years ago and had to fight like hell to keep from being screwed … count your fingers and never take your hand off your wallet. If I had an old beater truck at the time instead of an old beater escort, there would have been many, many flattened ESR signs …
posted by any on August 22nd, 2005 at 10:40 amWhat’s a beer fight, anyway? Is that like those old “Tastes great! Less filling!” commercials for Miller Lite?
posted by Dave on August 22nd, 2005 at 10:54 amI’ll speak to this one (briefly, cause I have stuff to do)…
An AA realtor who was selling the house I was renting a room in was dating a building inspector before she looked the house over. Took her on a island vacation. I would be woken up in the morning by contractors sitting at our dining room table.
– on the other hand –
[current] salesman buddy of mine was staying in at (if I recall) SW corner of Ann and Thayer. A [current] college professor and another fellow took one of those children’s desks that landlords like to decorate with, carried it outdoors, and threw it back inside through a window. I thnk that to this day, that is a sore point between them.
posted by A Different Jon on August 22nd, 2005 at 4:58 pmBetting dollars to donuts here that the realtors name was Jeff…….
posted by stella on August 23rd, 2005 at 9:07 amDonuts to dollars there was a “G” near the front of his last name…. and he looked like a guy from the Hair Bear Bunch.
posted by A Different Jon on August 23rd, 2005 at 8:23 pmWow, he’s still doing that shit? I cannot believe somebody hasn’t busted him. In my day she was also doing triple duty as his receptionist. And the result was that the “Brand New” sewer system never worked and as the manager I was supposed to mop up 4 to 6 times per day, every day.
posted by stella on August 23rd, 2005 at 11:02 pmAnd, I can’t believe I never noticed that resemblance before.
My story is from back in the day. Were you the one who passed on the breakup quotation:
“I [realtor] kicked her ass down the stairs and she landed on her cunt.”
And I just saw on World News Now that Pat Robertson is calling for assassination. It seems that no matter how big a jackass you are, there is always a bigger jackass.
posted by A Different Jon on August 24th, 2005 at 4:37 amNah, I would have probably had to try to smush him somehow had I heard him say that, I’m a pretty firm believer that that’s our word and men don’t get to bandy it about. I’ll cheerfully make an exception in your case as it’s a quote and not gratuitous and all.
posted by stella on August 24th, 2005 at 9:25 ammlesskinner@hotmail.com
latimes
Bugmetnot.com is wonderful
posted by glitzy on August 24th, 2005 at 11:29 amIt may be a generalization, but students are - GENERALLY - shitty tenants, loud, destructive, obnoxious, etc. I thank goodness that we live too far from campus for our apartment complex to interest the lazy little shits.
Regarding landlords maintaining the property, that’s a chicken-egg question, I guess… but treating an apartment like a dumpster because you don’t think your landlord is top-of-the-heap is pretty immature.
posted by Elizabeth on August 24th, 2005 at 8:40 pmI once was an undergraduate, and I now look back in horror at the things I did to my living space. And actually, I was pretty considerate, thinking about some of the things my fellow students did.
On the other side, give someone a sh*tty place to start with, and it’s not surprising that they treat it like sh*t.
The worst tenants I’ve known in my time in AA were not students. They lived in a house just around the corner from me. When they moved out, the landlord had to almost gut the house, and throw out all the carpeting and furniture. At least students have a purpose in life. These lowlives had no other purpose than getting high, as far as I could tell.
I frequently walk to work through “student ghetto” neighborhoods. The amount of trash and other cr*p (20 rotting Wall Street Journals, for example) that I have to step around and over is just amazing. I have to wonder why the tenants (presumably students) have so little pride in their own space and so little consideration for others.
SO, yeah, it’s a stereotype. But it’s not totally unjustified.
posted by Spencer on August 25th, 2005 at 11:27 pmWhat’s a “beer fight”?
posted by Anonymous on August 27th, 2005 at 11:42 amI am guessing that it is like a water ballon fight or a food fight, but with beer used as the projectile instead of water ballons or food.
posted by A Different Jon on August 27th, 2005 at 4:10 pmWhy would anyone waste beer like that?
Of course if its that crap that was usually served at frat parties, I can understand.
posted by Kozzie on August 29th, 2005 at 7:02 pmIt IS unjustified to stereotype students as filthy, pampered, and disrespectful of property, as is so frequently done. What do the Wall Street Journals prove about students (we may live in the same neighborhood, as I step over a pile of them every day on the way to campus during the school year)?
posted by Dale on August 29th, 2005 at 7:23 pmA beer fight sounds like something that is done when drunk.
posted by A Different Jon on August 30th, 2005 at 12:11 amThe journals prove they have to get it for a semester and really don’t care after that.
posted by Kozzie on August 30th, 2005 at 1:32 pmWhat’s so wrong with all of these things? I think he’s just jealous.
posted by Sarah on August 31st, 2005 at 10:58 pmgood grief none of you know what a ‘beer fight’ is! haven’t you ever rapped your buddy in the head with a beer bottle then paid the medical bill and decided next time to split a keg!! *its harder to thow a keg*
posted by sswotc on September 1st, 2005 at 8:21 pmI really dislike the self-appreciatory plug here, but it makes my point perfectly, with photographs:
http://www.hyalineskies.com/archives/447
Just show me how my apartment is disgusting. It’s organised, clean, orderly, and I didn’t paint all the walls red.
posted by eston on September 7th, 2005 at 5:36 pmWhere do you conduct your beer fights?
posted by Dave on September 8th, 2005 at 10:45 amMmmmm….. Beeeeeeer….
posted by JJ on September 9th, 2005 at 11:54 amDave: I leave those to the fraternities.
posted by eston on September 9th, 2005 at 4:46 pmamrita nice site and life is good
posted by Anonymous on November 3rd, 2005 at 3:17 pmlife would be better without fucking comment spammers
posted by Dave on November 3rd, 2005 at 3:29 pmunrisky nice site and life is good
posted by Anonymous on November 5th, 2005 at 1:49 pmIndeed. Uncompahgre, compadre.
posted by Brandon on November 6th, 2005 at 12:56 pmtrue.
life is good.
posted by peter honeyman on November 6th, 2005 at 7:12 pm